1. Field
The invention disclosed and claimed herein generally pertains to online mapping services. More particularly, the invention pertains to adapting an online mapping service or mapping tool to furnish and display information with the map that pertains to preferences and special interests of the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
At present, Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and online mapping services or systems such as Google maps, are used to provide directions to locations, travel distance information, and various types of information pertaining to a specified geographical location. For example, if a person plans to travel to a remote city for several days and stay at a particular address, he or she can use an online mapping service to locate places of interest, such as various types of businesses and public facilities that are within a specified distance from the particular address. By way of example and not limitation, places of interest could include hotels, movie theaters, public libraries, and restaurants or other businesses of particular types.
Notwithstanding the benefits of currently available mapping systems, their use has certain drawbacks. As an example, a user living in a large city such as New York could have a special interest in a certain type of vintage records. In order to search for records of the particular type, he enters a search request for “New York record stores” in an online mapping service of the above type. In response, the service provides the user with over 15,000 results. While each of these results is a New York record store, there is no further information to indicate which of the stores may contain the particular records of interest, and which do not. Accordingly, the user is required to expend further effort, which may be substantial, to determine this information for individual stores.